Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Lake Powell with my Boys

Fishing Time: Sunday – Wednesday (March 31 – April 3)

Weather: Calm, mostly sunny, Tuesday morning was windy, T-70s

Moon Phase: 50% Moon

Location: Lake Powell – Camped in Red Canyon

Water Temp: Morning – 56 degrees, Afternoon – 61 degrees

Water Level: 3,559 ft amsl

Mudline: Mud to Green stain started just north of Red Canyon, Green stain to clear just south of Ticaboo Canyon

Best Baits: Largemouth Bass – Jig and Trailer and deep diving crankbaits, Smallmouth bass and crappie – 3-inch Keitech swimbaits and curly tail grub on 1/8 oz jig head, Stripers and Walleye – trolling and casting deep diving crankbaits

Who Went: Devin, Dayton, Dunc

My boys have been begging me to take them to Lake Powell to camp and fish.  This week was their spring break, so we decided to make it happen.  The trip turned out incredible and we will probably need to make it an annual endeavor.  Apart from one windy morning the weather was perfect with temps in the 60s and sunny. 

On the drive down we hit a blizzard going over Soldier Summit and I learned something new after going to Bullfrog Marina at Lake Powell for many years.  We found the mountain that gave Bullfrog its name. All these years and I never knew…

We launched from Bullfrog and made the hour drive up to Red Canyon and setup camp with an hour of daylight left.  Some of us had a good nap on the ride up. The boys fished from shore and immediately caught a largemouth bass and crappie.

The first morning we started fishing right from camp not even cranking the big motor and within minutes the boys both caught a crappie and I landed my first largemouth of the trip on a jig.  

The boys wanted to catch some striped bass, so we trolled out to the mouth of Red Canyon using deep diving crankbaits and found them stacked on a shallow hump.  We trolled over them multiple times doubling or tripling up each time.  After 8-10 passes we decided just to anchor on top of them and cast our lures around the boat.  The boys continued hauling them in while I unhooked their catches.  I switched two rods to a bare jig head tipped with a worm to make the unhooking process easier.  It worked and Dayton put on a jigging clinic.  He not only landed a bunch of stripers, but also one channel catfish and a walleye.  The striper fishing was off the chain!



Check out the links below for video of our epic striper action...




Once their arms wore out catching stripers we went back to bass fishing and continued the catching for smallmouth, largemouth, and crappie.  We had one of the best days of fishing I’ve ever had at Lake Powell.  Every fish was healthy and fat. Dayton was one panfish away from the Lake Powell Grand Slam after landing Striped Bass, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Crappie, Walleye, and Channel Catfish.  Truly impressive for a 12-year old on your first day fishing Lake Powell. His best bait for bass and crappie was the 3-inch keitech swimbait rigged weedless.

That night sitting around the campfire the wind came up and didn’t stop all night.  It continued through the next morning and really made fishing tough.  We checked out some new water up in Scorup Canyon and trolled for stripers around the Horn, but with no success.  

Luckily at 4 pm the wind shutoff like a light switch and the fish immediately began to bite again.  It saved the day as we caught many more bass and crappie.  That evening we tried topwater and Dayton had one of the biggest blowups I’ve ever seen, but didn’t land it.  It was the only topwater bite of the night.

Our last day we planned to pack up and leave, but the morning was so gorgeous and calm that we gave it one more hour of fishing along our best run in Red Canyon.  We all caught a few more fish before finally calling it quits.

What an epic trip with my boys.  They made me proud setting up camp, gathering firewood, and fishing like true pro’s.  Can’t wait to do it again.

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